FATE,
PLUS OR MINUS
by Don Larsson
Serendipity (not to be confused with the recent release
Happy Accidents) follows an old and reliable Romantic Comedy
formula: Fate decrees that boy and girl must come together, come what
may. In this case, John Cusak and Kate Beckinsale tussle over a pair
of gloves at Bloomingdale's, are entranced by each other's cheekbones,
wander the pre-Christmas city together, but don't quite connect at evening's
end. Beckinsale, it seems, is a romantic of the type who believes that
Destiny will find a way. If love is fated to be, it will occur. So she
writes her name and phone number in a book that she will give to a used
book seller, and has Cusak put his vital info on a five-dollar bill
that she promptly spends. Now, it just remains to be seen if those items
will ever enter back into their lives.
OK,
folks! You've all been here before, and you can pretty much write the
rest of the film for yourselves. Time, of course, passes, and both characters
have moved on with their lives to the point of committing to others
who are Mr. and Ms. Not-Quite-Right. But before crossing that line,
each feels impelled to try to track down the other in one of those Romantic
Comedy New York Cities that are all glamor and beauty - Central Park
skating rink, Waldorf Astoria, Bloomie's, and the film's eponymous restaurant
(think When Harry Met Sally, Autumn in New York, etc.,
etc.).
There's
not much here to advance the formula, and director Peter Chelsom (Town
& Country) is not the advancing type. Cusak's 2nd-choice bride
is more or less a cipher (nothing to really dislike but nothing to feel
sorry for either). Beckinsale's retread beau, however, is comically
played by Northern Exposure's John Corbett as a self-absorbed
New Age musician. He has a couple of nice scenes. Even he, though, vanishes
tastefully rather than getting any kind of comeuppance or runner-up
prize.
Cusak
and Beckinsale both indeed have adorable cheekbones, and there are a
few good lines and good scenes, especially a couple involving Buck Henry
(in an uncredited cameo) and Eugene Levy as a Bloomie's salesman. Cusak
uses his air of semi-innocent wonder to good effect, with Jeremy Piven
as his intense and wordly foil of a friend.
If
it's formula, at least it's competent formula, no mean feat after the
tripe of so many incompetent romantic comedies in the last couple of
years. A pleasant enough diversion, Serendipity may keep you
happy for a little while, as long as you ignore that there's nothing
accidental about it at all.
If
Serendipity is about Love as Fate, From Hell is
about fated murder. Yet another take on the legend of Jack the Ripper,
From Hell began as a graphic novel by Alan Moore (legendary creator
of the Watchmen comics) and Eddie Campbell. The film details
the fated triangle of the Ripper with a Whitechapel prostitute (Heather
Graham) and a psychic police officer (Johnny Depp). As the Ripper goes
about his grisly business, Depp quickly comes to realize that he must
be one of the Elite, very likely a skilled surgeon, maybe even a member
of the royal family, and that of course leads him deeper into the territory
of plots and secret cabals.
Depp
is very good casting for the part, although he does not take his character
much farther from other performances he's given, and Heather Graham's
eyes are a good match for his. The better performances, though, come
from Robbie Coltrane as Depp's assistant and Ian Holm as an aging physician.
But the real star of the movie is its atmosphere. The Hughes Brothers,
best known for Menace II Society, have done a remarkable job
of creating a Victorian London laden with drunks, prosititutes, rats
and a menace of its own. Stark use of lighting effects replicates the
best of the graphic novel images, themselves inspired by movies.
Yet
for all the blood, menace, and dazzling design, there's still something
oddly distant about the film. I was startled once or twice perhaps,
but never had that sense of dread and fear that a film like Silence
of the Lambs produces. More than a century after the fact, the Ripper
continues to live in the popular imagination, but there's not enough
sense of a Hell inspiring him here to offset the Hell of London's streets
in which he walked.
©2001 Don Larsson
CineScene
